Football fans from across Kansas and other parts of the country with connections with Kansas State and Pittsburg State are traveling to big college football games. On Saturday, the Pitt State fans are invading Florence, Ala., then after the first of the year, K-State fans are going in mass to Arlington, Texas.
Man, what a wonderful year of college football in Kansas.
Butler County Community College went 11-1, won the Jayhawk Conference and NJCAA Region VI championships, won the Citizens Bank Bowl and finished ranked No. 2 in the NJCAA polls.
K-State’s Wildcats were the surprise of the Big 12 Conference. They went 10-2 overall, were 7-2 in Big 12 play, beat every Texas team in the conference and finished second behind Oklahoma State and in front of Oklahoma. Their reward was the 2012 Cotton Bowl.
This week’s buzz is all about Pittsburg State’s Gorillas and their run to the NCAA Division II National Championship Game. Fans held a send-off for the PSU team Wednesday in Pittsburg as they boarded buses for the trip to Florence, Ala.
The seventh-ranked Gorillas (12-1) take on unranked Wayne State (12-3) at 10 a.m. Saturday. The game will be on ESPN2 (Channel 33 on Iola Cox Cable TV).
Former Iola High standouts Kyler Thompson and Chris Heffern, while not suited out and on the field for PSU, will be at the championship game Saturday. An anonymous donor has paid for a chartered bus for the PSU players who were not on the playoff roster so they can go, according to Linda Heffern, Chris’ mother. The players have to pay for game tickets and meals for the trip.
This is Pitt State’s fifth all-time appearance in the NCAA Division II title game. The Gorillas won the championship game in 1991 and finished as the national runner-up in 1992, 1995 and 2004.
Wayne State of Detroit, Mich., is in its first-ever NCAA Division II championship game. The Warriors won four straight road games to reach the title game.
NOW FOR K-STATE, as big of a Wildcat fan as I am, I won’t be among the throng of purple in Dallas-Arlington, Texas, area that first week of January. The Cotton Bowl is on Friday, Jan. 6 at Cowboys Stadium.
There’s good things and bad things about that date.
First, I’m happy with the Cotton Bowl for the Wildcats. As an ardent Kansas State sports fan, the Cotton Bowl is fine with me. It would have been nice to be in a BCS football bowl game for the Wildcats but it wasn’t in the cards. Actually both K-State and Arkansas got snubbed but they will make a great matchup for the 2012 Cotton Bowl.
Man, what a game it should be — No. 6 Arkansas against No. 8 K-State. The Razorbacks finished the regular season 10-2, just like the Wildcats. They were 6-2 in the SEC. And they bring a potent offensive show to the field.
A couple other good things — the Cotton Bowl is the only bowl game on that Friday with a 7 p.m. kickoff and it is on FOX, so even my father, who doesn’t have cable or satellite television, can watch it.
They say the only other tickets more expensive than the Cotton Bowl’s are to the BCS Championship Game between LSU and Alabama in New Orleans, La., on Jan. 9.
The bad thing about it — I can’t go or watch it on television live. As a K-State fan, I have to work that night with high school basketball. Over the years, I was able to cover four of K-State’s bowl games under Bill Snyder — the First — because I was on vacation and the bowl games were on or before Jan. 1 of the next year.
